Bears are OK, we need to train humans

I'm talking to the people who put their trash out the night before instead of waiting until morning.

Or store food in the garage without keeping the garage door shut.

Or keep bees or livestock unprotected.

Or, worst of all, purposely feed the bears.

You're making things — I can't help myself — unbearable for the rest of us.

Since 2008, the state has cataloged nearly 10,000 cases in our region of bears strolling across lawns, helping themselves to trash cans, poking around garages and generally being a sometimes disconcerting nuisance.

Central Florida might as well be Bear Central.

There's only one explanation for why the number of reports has soared in recent years: The bears have learned we offer easy pickings.

If you were hungry — and not very discerning about your diet — and had the choice between hunting a deer, skinning it and cooking it or rolling up to the McDonald's drive-through, which one would you choose?

"Bears think the same way," said Mike Orlando, bear-management program assistant coordinator with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Our hulking furry neighbors consider a cul-de-sac filled with trash cans to be a fast, easy meal because we have let them think that way.

We didn't take the right precautions fast enough when bear sightings started to jump.

Too few people changed their habits and continued setting out a bear buffet in the form of unprotected trash cans, garage refrigerators and bird feeders.

The bears, showing a greater capacity to learn than some suburbanites, took that as an invitation to keep coming back.

Now they're worse than Clark Griswold's Uncle Eddie. They show up unannounced with the family and make a big mess.

It's important to remember that this parade of bears is a victory for conservation efforts.

Bears were listed as a threatened species in Florida in 1973, though they could still be hunted seasonally until 1994.

For the past 19 years it's been illegal to hurt or harass a bear in Florida; as a result, the population has boomed.

When I was a kid growing up in the 32779 ZIP code, I don't recall ever seeing a bear. But in the past five years, there have been more than 1,100 sightings there, making Longwood the leading ZIP code for bear "conflicts."

"Conflict" is the term state wildlife officials use to describe encounters between people and bears.

"It's a success story for us, but the consequence of having a success for a species like bears is now we have a shift toward getting the population of Florida to understand bears are out there now," Orlando said.

In other words, the bears are fine. Now we need to train the humans.

There's been some noise about opening bears back up to hunting. An official population estimate scheduled for next year is expected to show their numbers have surged, but a hunt remains unlikely because no one wants to see Yogi get shot.

"Even though bears may be biologically sustainable, the public support for a hunt is overwhelmingly negative," Orlando said.

He said hunting may not make a dent in the problem of bears in neighborhoods anyway.

That's because hunters wouldn't be able to set up a tree stand on Hunt Club Boulevard or pitch a camo tent next to the trails through Wekiwa Springs State Park. Hunting would be restricted to much less developed areas.

So the bears foraging for food on neighborhood streets wouldn't necessarily be the bears taken in a hunt, Orlando said.

A more direct solution is for people to stop doing the things that attract bears in the first place.

Buy a bear-resistant trash can. Don't store food in your garage. Use an electric fence if you keep bees or livestock. Either stop using bird feeders or bring them in every night.